Invisible Weapons

by John Rhode

  ‘What did you do when you received this package?’

  ‘Burnt the lot,’ replied Willingdon cheerfully. ‘If my respected parents had seen it they might have indefinitely postponed the slaughter of the fatted calf. And as it happens I’m particularly partial to Wiener shnitzel.’

  ‘Do you deny that during your absence from Leeds you took a cottage at Adderminster, which you occupied during the weekends?’

  ‘Most emphatically I deny it. I never left London the whole time I was away from here. I dwelt, not in marble halls, but in stuffy rooms in Bloomsbury. To tell the shocking truth, I was by way of being the prodigal son just then, and my stern but just sire kept me uncomfortably short of cash. During the weekends I consumed not the husks that the swine did eat but the imported mutton that my landlady did boil. I don’t suppose that there was much to choose between the two diets in the way of dryness.’

  ‘Can you give me the address of these rooms?’

  ‘Rather, I’m never likely to forget it. Does the released criminal ever forget the address of Dartmoor? 18, Limber Street. It’s a turning off Gower Street. And the landlady’s name is Mrs Peacock. Though why, I never could discover.’

  ‘Where were you on Saturday and Sunday, 12th and 13th June?’

  Willingdon flung out his hands in a deprecatory gesture. ‘Search me!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m not one of those people who can remember everything they did on every day of the year. While I was in London I was supposed to be employed in our London office, but, of course, that was closed during the weekends. And by the middle of June I was so dead broke that there was nothing for it but to stay put and twiddle my thumbs. Wait a minute. That must have been the last weekend I spent in London. Yes, I distinctly remember staying in those ghastly rooms all the time.’

  ‘Why did you have your correspondence addressed to Harlow’s Hotel?’

  ‘Not guilty, my lud,’ Willingdon replied. ‘Never heard of the place. I’ll admit that while funds lasted I did stagger round the town a bit in the evenings frequenting hotels and places where men drink. I made the acquaintance of several fellow sinners in the process.’

  ‘Did you tell any of them the reason for your being in London?’

  ‘Well, you know, one does get a bit confidential towards the end of an evening. The ostensible reason for my absence from the paternal roof was that satisfying and comprehensive word, study. People like Mrs Peacock, no doubt, regarded me as an assiduous and promising student. What of, I don’t know. But some of my merry comrades of the tankard got the truth out of me. Though it might have caused the eyebrows of the prudish to vibrate disapprovingly, it did not seem to offend their susceptibilities.’

  ‘Did you meet a Miss Nancy Lanchester while you were in London?’

  Willingdon shook his head slowly and deliberately. ‘You may think it ungallant of me, inspector, but I studiously avoided the company of the female sex. Not the witching arms of Dido for this pious Æneas, thank you, just then. The fact is that I was in the process of being extricated from a particularly sticky spider’s web, and I wasn’t inclined to enter any more parlours.’

  ‘Can you tell me the names of any of these acquaintances of yours?’

  ‘Quite honestly, inspector, I can’t. I could recite a string of Christian names as long as your arm, but that wouldn’t help either of us. I didn’t, so to speak, demand their visiting cards. All that concerned me was to learn the distinguishing label by which they were known to the girl behind the bar. Tom, Dick, Harry or even Absalom. So long as they answered to one or the other it was good enough for me. I wasn’t likely to drift into the Orestes and Pylades business with any of them.’

  Jimmy tried the effect of a sudden change of subject. ‘Why did your firm hire a thirty-hundredweight van from the Peregrine Transport Company of Islington for three weeks from July 26 last?’ he asked.

  But Willingdon betrayed no uneasiness whatever at this question. ‘We didn’t,’ he replied promptly. ‘As it happens, the supervision of our firm’s transport is my particular job. We have several lorries and vans of our own and it doesn’t often happen that we have to hire. When we do, we call upon a transport company in this town.’

  ‘Where were you on August 4, last, the Wednesday after Bank Holiday?’

  ‘Here in the office. We opened again after the holiday that day. And I spent the whole evening at home, I remember, playing billiards with my guv’nor and a couple of his friends.’

  ‘When were you last in London?’

  ‘I left London on June 16, I do happen to remember that date. And I haven’t been back there since. There must be a dozen people at least in this town who can prove the truth of that statement.’

  Jimmy thanked Willingdon for his courtesy in coming to see him, and a few minutes later the young man left the police station. With the help of the local inspector, Jimmy spent the rest of the day in verifying his last statements. By the end of the evening he was fully convinced that he had had no opportunity of visiting London during the last couple of months.

  However, there remained the question of Willingdon’s whereabouts at the time of Mr Fransham’s murder. Jimmy went back to London and on Friday morning made his way to Limber Street and interviewed Mrs Peacock. She remembered Mr Willingdon’s visit perfectly well. He had been a little bit wild during the first week or two he had spent with her; stayed out disgracefully late at night and that sort of thing. But later he had settled down to more regular habits. She was emphatic in her assurance that he had never spent a whole night away from the rooms. And she was equally certain that he had hardly gone out of doors at all during the last weekend that he was with her, June 12 and 13. As for his correspondence, he had received about half a dozen letters a week, all addressed to Limber Street.

  Feeling completely baffled, Jimmy felt that his only course was a further interview with Dr Priestley. Hanslet concurred in this view and they sought permission to visit the professor that evening. This was readily granted and shortly after nine o’clock they found themselves in the familiar study.

  Dr Priestley seemed unusually affable. ‘I am very glad to welcome you both again so soon,’ he said. ‘I assume that you have returned from Leeds, inspector? Were you successful in eliciting any information from Francis Willingdon?’

  ‘I was sir, but it was nearly all negative. I’m quite satisfied that Willingdon was not on the spot when either Mr Fransham or Sir Godfrey were murdered. If he’s guilty he must have had a confederate who impersonated him.’

  ‘Have you any clue to the identity of this confederate?’

  ‘Not the slightest, sir. But the Willingdon whom I saw yesterday can’t have been the Willingdon who took the cottage at Adderminster. When I called at the cottage at the time of Mr Fransham’s murder, I’m afraid I didn’t observe the occupant very closely. I didn’t for a moment think that he had any connection with the crime and I only called upon him on the off-chance that he had seen or heard something which would help me. Two things about him did impress me, however. The unusual paleness of his face and his ridiculous and rather affected manner of speaking.

  ‘When I saw the man at Leeds I didn’t recognise him. But it didn’t seem to me that there was anything very extraordinary about that. I had only seen the man at the cottage for a few minutes in a comparatively dark room. He was then very carelessly dressed, and this man’s appearance was unusually smart. The difference of light and clothes might have accounted for my failing to recognise him. But the two characteristics I remembered best—the pale face and the queer manner of speech—were there in both cases. On the evidence of appearance alone, I couldn’t even now decide for certain whether or not it was the same man I interviewed on both occasions.’

  ‘Then why are you convinced of the existence of a confederate?’ Dr Priestley asked.

  ‘Because, sir, if Willingdon was at Mrs Peacock’s in Limber Street when Mr Fransham was murdered, he couldn’t have been behind the wall at Adderminster at the same time. Nor, since he
has never left Leeds during the past couple of months, could he have been in the cellar of No. 4 Cheveley Street at the time of Sir Godfrey’s murder.’

  ‘In other words, you believe in the existence of two Francis Willingdons—the false and the true? But why should you believe that they were in association?’

  ‘They must have been, sir. Otherwise, how could the false Willingdon have passed himself off so successfully as the true?’

  ‘Probably because they moved in entirely different circles,’ Dr Priestley replied. ‘But I should like to hear the details of your conversation with the true Willingdon.’

  Jimmy described his interview in the Leeds Police Station and the investigations which he had made subsequently. Dr Priestley listened to this and smiled when the inspector came to the end of his account.

  ‘The true Willingdon displays the ingenuousness of youth,’ he said. ‘It requires very little stretch of the imagination to picture him during the first few days of his stay in London. He had left his home under something of a cloud. He probably felt very lonely among total strangers and was only too ready to pour his story into the first sympathetic ear.

  ‘One of those in whom he confided decided to adopt his personality for his own ends. We may assume, I think, that the false Willingdon was in appearance not utterly unlike the true; he was at all events approximately of the same height, build and age. His first step was to establish himself at Harlow’s Hotel, but nowhere else in London, in his identity as Francis Willingdon. The chances that the true Francis Willingdon would visit the same hotel were too remote for consideration. It would be simple enough for the false Willingdon to post letters to himself addressed to the hotel.

  ‘That it was the false Willingdon who took the cottage in that name I have no doubt whatever. No one had any reason to question his identity. He endeavoured to disguise the real purpose for which he had taken it. His real object was the murder of Mr Fransham. We have already outlined in theory the method which he adopted.’

  ‘But why did he want to murder him, professor?’ Hanslet asked. ‘It seems to me that, whether we are dealing with the true Willingdon or the false, we are still up against that question of motive.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Dr Priestley replied. ‘Let us trace the further career of the false Willingdon. He dropped this disguise, if such it can be called, immediately he left Adderminster for the last time. He ran the risk, of course, that you might some day meet the true Willingdon, inspector. But he must have thought that extremely unlikely, and in any case he had provided against it to the best of his ability. A little cosmetic carefully applied would simulate, sufficiently well to withstand scrutiny in a darkened room, the pallor which he had noticed in the original. And a trick of speech is very easily acquired by anyone possessing an attentive ear. His success in this matter is shown by your own confession, that on appearance alone you could not decide between the false and the true.

  ‘He resumed the disguise, or possibly only the name, when it came to making preparations for the murder of Sir Godfrey. This I think was an error of judgment, though it must have seemed to him a very trifling one. It was most improbable that the death of Sir Godfrey would ever become the subject of investigation. Even if it did, the significance of the van in connection with it might easily have been overlooked. The man who hired the van had to pass himself off as the representative of some firm, and the name of Willingdon & Son occurred to him naturally. Since the expenses of hiring the van were paid in advance, it was highly improbable that the Peregrine Transport Co. would make any inquiries.

  ‘And now, superintendent, we are in a position to explore the question of motive. Since it was evident from the first that Dr and Mrs Thornborough were the only people to benefit by the death of Mr Fransham, it was only logical to suppose as you did that one or other of them was guilty. Fortunately, I think, you were unable to supply the essential piece of evidence, the method in which the crime was committed. It did not take me very long to deduce the nature of the missile which had caused Mr Fransham’s death. But had I revealed this to you before I did, you would, I feel certain, have arrested the doctor without further investigation. Even if no grave miscarriage of justice had ensued, needless agony would have been caused to innocent people.’

  ‘I’m still not altogether convinced of the doctor’s innocence,’ Hanslet muttered.

  ‘Because you are obsessed with the idea of a direct personal motive. I suggested to you some days ago that an investigation of Sir Godfrey’s murder might throw light upon the death of Mr Fransham. Surely you must see now that the removal of Mr Fransham was an essential preliminary to the successful attempt upon Sir Godfrey’s life.’

  But Hanslet was not inclined to commit himself. ‘I’d like you to make that quite clear, professor,’ he replied.

  ‘I will endeavour to do so. I begin with the assumption that the eventual aim of the false Willingdon was the death of Sir Godfrey. You have heard my theory of the means he took to achieve this end. But in order to carry out the scheme which he had formulated, he had to contrive that No. 4 Cheveley Street should be vacated.

  ‘The situation regarding No. 4 was this: In the ordinary course of events, Mr Fransham’s lease would have expired at Christmas this year. At the time of his death it was still doubtful whether or not he would renew it. He had, so far as we know, come to no final decision on the matter.

  ‘But in any case I suspect the false Willingdon could not afford to wait until Christmas. It was essential to his purpose that Sir Godfrey should die by the middle of August. He had, therefore, to dispose of Mr Fransham at least a couple of months before that date, in order that No. 4 should be vacated in time.

  ‘This then was the true motive for Mr Fransham’s murder. The false Willingdon felt no animosity towards him, nor had he any prospect of deriving pecuniary advantage from his death. If he could have seen any other way of securing the vacation of No. 4 he would probably have taken it. No man, even the most callous, commits a murder if it seems to him unnecessary. But I think we may conjecture that the false Willingdon was in such desperate straits that he dare not hesitate at a preliminary murder to achieve his end.

  ‘He ran very little risk of detection, for his motive was completely hidden, and would have remained so had the true cause of Sir Godfrey’s death not been discovered. It would be ridiculous to arrest, on a charge of murder, a man to whom no conceivable motive could be attributed. The fact that he had been sailing under false colours might have been revealed, but it is very doubtful whether his true identity would have transpired. The search would have been among those who had been associated with Mr Fransham, and not among those who had surrounded Sir Godfrey. Had we all been contented to accept the verdict of the coroner’s jury in the case of Sir Godfrey the murderer of Mr Fransham would never have been found.’

  ‘Hold on a minute, professor,’ Hanslet exclaimed. ‘So far as I know, he hasn’t been detected now.’

  ‘Surely there can be little doubt concerning the identity of the false Willingdon,’ Dr Priestley replied. ‘Let us briefly review what we already know about him.

  ‘The fact that he rented the cottage in Gunthorpe Road shows that he knew that Mr Fransham was a comparatively frequent visitor to Epidaurus. The forged letter shows that he was aware of the relationship between Mr Fransham and the Thornboroughs. He knew Mrs Thornborough’s Christian name, but was not recognised by Dr Thornborough when he consulted him professionally. He knew that Mr Fransham kept a car, for the forged letter expressly suggests that he should drive from London to Adderminster. He knew where Mr Fransham was in the habit of purchasing his tobacco.

  ‘Again, the false Willingdon possessed a fund of knowledge regarding Sir Godfrey Branstock. He knew of his habit of going down to the cellar in person before dinner, to select his wines. The date of his preparations suggests that he knew that Sir Godfrey would do so on August 4, when a dinner party was to be given at No. 3 Cheveley Street. In order to complete these preparations, he must
have had the opportunity of securing a duplicate key to No. 4 at some time prior to July 27.

  ‘These are the principal items of knowledge which we can attribute with some certainty to the false Willingdon. And I maintain that they are just the items of knowledge which we should expect one person and one person only to possess.’

  Hanslet and Jimmy exchanged a swift glance before the former spoke. ‘Anthony Mayland!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Precisely,’ Dr Priestley replied. ‘I understand, superintendent, that you have never seen the man who called himself Francis Willingdon.’

  ‘No, for he was supposed to be back in Leeds before I took over the case,’ Hanslet replied. ‘I didn’t think him of sufficient importance to go up there to interview him, so I left him to the supervision of the Leeds Police.’

  ‘Who, not unnaturally, concentrated their attention on the true Willingdon,’ Dr Priestley remarked. ‘And you, inspector, have never seen Anthony Mayland?’

  ‘No, sir, I haven’t,’ Jimmy replied. ‘When I was concerned with the case, there was nothing whatever to connect him with the murder of Mr Fransham.’

  Dr Priestley smiled. ‘Nor would there ever have been but for my incurably suspicious nature. Now let us endeavour to form a theory to account for this double crime on the assumption of Mayland’s guilt.

  ‘We have first to consider the relationship which existed between Mayland and Sir Godfrey Branstock. The latter had, to all intents and purposes, adopted Mayland as his own son, as is shown by the terms of the first will. I admit that at present we have only Mayland’s statement as to the existence of this will, but it is unlikely that he would have misled us in a matter which could be verified by reference to Mr Emscott, Sir Godfrey’s solicitor.

  ‘After his mother’s death, Mayland became Sir Godfrey’s sole heir. He had no doubt grown accustomed to the situation, and had not taken into account the possibility of his stepfather marrying again.